The Milburn report shines a light on something many HR professionals will recognise but few have been willing to confront – we have made it extraordinarily difficult for young people to get their first foot in the door. 

The creep of multi-stage recruitment processes, automated screening and recorded video interviews into roles that once required little more than a willingness to show up is a problem of our own making. The finding that the most consistent complaint from young applicants is not rejection but silence is a damning indictment of how some employers are managing that experience.

It would be wrong, however, to lay all of this at the door of employers. Increases in employer National Insurance contributions, the extension of the National Living Wage to younger age groups, and the costs of compliance and onboarding all weigh disproportionately on the economics of casual and entry-level hiring.

Employer behaviour does not develop in isolation from government policy. As employment protections expand, compliance expectations increase and greater scrutiny is placed on probationary periods, casual working arrangements and zero-hours contracts, etc. employers inevitably become more risk-conscious about hiring decisions. 

For many organisations, entry level recruitment now carries significantly greater perceived cost and complexity than it did a decade ago.   

Employers are being asked to take chances on candidates with little or no work history at precisely the moment the legal, financial and operational risks associated with getting recruitment wrong feel higher than ever. That helps explain why recruitment processes have become increasingly formalised and risk-managed, even for relatively junior roles. 

Danger of over-correction in recruitment

The mental health data is equally sobering. The proportion of disabled young people who are NEET citing mental health as their primary condition has nearly doubled since 2011, and employers need to recognise their legal obligations under the Equality Act apply in recruitment, as well as in employment. 

But there is a danger that the system has overcorrected. Lengthy application forms, competency-heavy selection criteria, automated screening tools and multi-stage interview processes disproportionately disadvantage young people trying to enter the workforce for the first time. The same is often true for candidates from less affluent backgrounds, who may not have access to professional networks, work experience opportunities, technology or the guidance needed to navigate increasingly complex recruitment systems. 

Too often, the young people who succeed are those whose families can open doors for them. That raises important questions not only about youth employment, but about social mobility and fairness more broadly.

Opening doors to entry-level employment

Work experience and informal entry points into employment have also declined significantly. That is despite the government setting out an ambition for every young person to receive the equivalent of two weeks’ work experience during their education. Yet access to meaningful workplace exposure remains highly inconsistent in practice, and many employers have reduced the availability of meaningful work experience, summer placement and vacation scheme opportunities outside of non-professional career pathways. 

For many people now in senior leadership positions, this shift is starkly recognisable on a personal level. Casual work and informal employment opportunities for teenagers were commonplace when I was 17 years old. Saturday jobs, pub work, shop work, warehouse shifts and paper rounds provided not only income, but an early introduction to responsibility, confidence and workplace culture. Those opportunities may have been lower paid and less formal, but they were accessible, flexible and abundant.

At a recent board meeting, an icebreaker discussion about people’s first jobs revealed a shared experience across the room – shop work, hospitality roles, paper rounds and warehouse jobs featured heavily. The more sobering question was what the next generation of leaders will say when asked the same question in twenty years’ time. For many young people today, the opportunity to develop those early experiences of work simply may not exist in the same way.

Government support essential and actions for employers

Employers cannot solve the structural challenges identified in the Milburn report alone, but there are practical changes organisations can make immediately. That includes simplifying entry-level recruitment processes, reconsidering unnecessary experience requirements, reducing reliance on automated screening tools for junior roles, and creating more accessible pathways into work through work experience, summer placements and school engagement programmes.

There is also a strong case for employers to rethink how they assess potential. Many young people may lack formal experience, polished CVs or confidence in interview settings, but still possess the adaptability, resilience and aptitude businesses say they are struggling to find. This applies just as much to operational and support roles as it does to graduate or professional routes into employment.

Employers do not need to wait for the Milburn report’s autumn recommendations to act. The following steps could make a measurable difference now: 

• Auditing entry-level recruitment processes to identify and remove unnecessary barriers for first-time applicants.
• Introducing meaningful candidate communication policies to ensure applicants receive timely responses rather than silence.
• Identifying untapped capacity for work experience, summer placements or school engagement programmes.
• Reducing reliance on automated screening tools for junior and entry-level roles.

There is, however, an uncomfortable contradiction within the labour market itself. Employers frequently talk about skills shortages and difficulties attracting talent, yet many recruitment processes are designed in ways that exclude candidates with potential simply because they lack prior experience. 

If employers are serious about addressing long-term workforce gaps, they need to think more creatively about how they identify capability and create new pathways into work. The employers that build relationships with young people before they are job-ready will be better placed in a labour market that is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate - for young people and businesses alike.